


Beautiful Prison

by angelskuuipo



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Character Study, Community: numb3rs100, Early Work, GFY, Gen, Triple Drabble, spoilers for Uncertainty Principle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 07:16:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1770349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelskuuipo/pseuds/angelskuuipo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A prison is still a prison</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beautiful Prison

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt #105- Prison
> 
> Written for [](http://numb3rs100.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://numb3rs100.livejournal.com/)**numb3rs100**. Unbeta-ed. Any and all mistakes are mine.
> 
> Originally posted 5-2-07.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Everyone went on about how special Charlie was, how brilliant. And he knew he was, he really did. But he was also a prisoner, a prisoner of his own mind, and no one really seemed to get that. His mom had come closest, but even she hadn’t fully comprehended how much of a hold the numbers had on him. His brain didn’t work like other people’s did and that put him at a disadvantage. He had no trouble putting together lectures and papers, no trouble talking about his precious numbers, but dealing with the everyday world, the _normal_ world wasn’t nearly as easy. But he did it convincingly enough to stay in control of his own life, most of the time anyway.

When things got really bad, like when his mom was sick, it was like he’d been thrown into solitary confinement and no one could hear him screaming to get out. He knew his brother and his dad resented him for what he’d done then, but he couldn’t tell them that he’d had no choice. That P vs NP was what the warden had demanded of him. There was no way to explain it in a way that they would understand.

Which was why he was letting Don push him around and yell at him for abandoning the Charm School Boys case. Charlie was back in solitary and wasn’t allowed visitors.

His brother thought he was fragile, and Charlie supposed Don was right in some ways. But Charlie would be damned before he let on that sometimes he hated the numbers, that all he wanted sometimes was one day of normalcy, of seeing the world, just once, like everyone else did.

His numbers were beautiful, but a prison was still a prison, and Charlie had been sentenced for life.

-30-  



End file.
